THE END IS NIGH

And by that I mean, the end of November, the beginning of Advent and the start of the liturgical year. Advent is just the most amazing time and every year I promise myself I will 1) get myself an advent candle 2) do the appropriate daily Bible reading and 3) ponder it as said candle burns down to the next mark. Each year the result is the same, I spend a month pondering how I didn’t get a candle in time and therefore am a useless individual etc etc etc. This is one of those times that the dreadful expression “if you can’t do a thing properly, don’t do it at all” trips me at every step like a small dog does a postman. And it renders me equally immobile.

There are several old sayings like that - dreadful, bullying phrases that, once implanted in the psyche, take root and reappear periodically for no other reason that to cause pain, barbarously thistle-like in their tenacity. For instance “a bad workman always blames his tools” - as if travel isn’t easier in a limo rather than a penny-farthing, or “pride comes before a fall” just in case you might be considering becoming confident in your own abilities.

This is the only face my microwave ever sees.

Advent is a time where we stop to consider how much had to happen in order for Jesus to be born in the precise circumstances we are so familiar with. Something which, at the time, passed with little notice to most of the population. The wise men had a journey of two years before reaching their destination - before Jesus was even formed within the womb they had set out to find him. As someone who paces impatiently back and forth when it’s cooking my two minute popcorn this alone is worth considering for the entire advent period. I think this time around I will focus on small actions rather than impressive intentions, it seems to me to be the only way to go.